In last week’s post, Diggin’ in the Crates Vol. 3, I featured photos of one of my favourite spots - downtown Dartmouth in Nova Scotia. In today’s post, I wanted to write a bit more about it and share the results of a little photo walk I took in that area recently.
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Dartmouth sits right across the harbour from its often better known sister city, Halifax. I used to live on the Halifax side - a proud resident of a bustling area known as the North End for about 10 years. Downtown Dartmouth has changed a lot since that time, and now it’s one of my favourite spots.
Downtown Dartmouth has so much to offer photographers - tons of character and super walkable. The downtown is small, only about five square blocks, but there is a lot packed into a this tiny space. The area is a mix of business and residential buildings, old homes, yards and gardens beside the brickwork of buildings, businesses and shops - all woven together pretty seamlessly. It’s a wealth of photo opportunities: textures, juxtaposed scenes, and in the summer, it has so many sun dappled moments of green, orange and yellow.
Because of the layout and architecture, there are a lot of hidden gems to capture. I stepped away from my regular photography route and took a few turns I’d normally never take. This led me to all kinds of hidden little roadways and alleys. Small spaces rife with detail and drenched in the setting sun and surrounding shadow of the trees and shrubs.
Downtown Dartmouth has a lot of green; there is plant life everywhere you turn. So, I did what the area seemed to be telling me to do and took a lot of photos of the abundant greenery and how it weaves itself in amongst the buildings and alley ways.
As I went searching for pockets of light and texture, I explored a narrow roadway that led to a row of bungalows overlooking a church and its surrounding buildings. Walking past it, I eyed a bright yellow 1960’s Volkswagen Beetle in a driveway. As I approached it, my attention was immediately taken off the car and drawn to a hedge covered in bright orange flowers. In the mid-day light, they glowed like a campfire. And, like a moth to a flame, I walked towards them.
The flowers were planted in an immaculately maintained yard, so I was trying to capture them from a distance, until I noticed someone there cleaning off some gardening tools. I called out and asked if they minded if I took a photo of their flowers. As they turned, without even seeing who I was, they had already said “of course, come take as many as you like!”. It was the kind of gesture you would only get from someone old enough to have seen enough shit to throw caution to the wind and invite a stranger into their yard, sight unseen, and sure enough that was absolutely the case.
Her eyes showed her age more than anything. In the moment, I guessed 90, but it turns out she was 95. Just out there crushing her gardening, boots on, tools in hand. A quick photo suddenly turned into a solid 15 minute conversation about her life in Dartmouth, her home, and her garden - I learned so much about hydrangeas, you don’t even know! While we chatted, I captured some shots of the incredible yard on both film and digital (film to be developed soon).
We talked about her small street and the surrounding downtown, and even the area I lived in which she was also quite familiar with. It was awesome. I was only recently lamenting to another photographer here on Substack that I was jealous of their experiences of having little chats with people as they shot around the city. That doesn’t often happen here; most people barely look up, much less want to chat to a stranger (I mean, I don’t blame them…but also human interaction is healthy), and so I feel like I manifested this cool little moment.
In the four hours I was out, I took hundreds of photos and, if you can believe it, I had more than one interaction (see the photo of Bo, the cat).
I know it’s not a new concept to step out of your routine to discover something new, but doing so on this particular day worked out really well and gave me a few great memories. I never got the gardener’s name, or a photo. We chatted like we knew each other and then it was over and we both moved on. Pretty similar to taking photos - for that brief moment in the viewfinder you are learning as much about your subject as possible to capture them, then you quickly move on to the next.
Stay focused.
Out and about, out talking is such a great way to be in the space. Honestly, I bet you made her day. She probably told her friends that a photographer came to take pictures of her flowers. 😆
This is a great set of images Dan! I've got to agree - I love to walk around the residential neighbourhoods where I live and I find, if I've got my camera with me, locals going about their daily outside chores are more likely to chat. It's interesting to see a different Dartmouth to the one over here - if you are visiting I highly recommend it... and the beautiful countryside around it!